A/N: Hey guys! So sorry I haven't been able to update the story for AGES now, but there is a reason to that and I really would not like to bore you with the details, but thank you all for being so patient. Enjoy :)
Shanks sighed as he drank some sake. No one spoke. No one even dared make a sound, both were carefully digesting what the other had said. Sophie awkwardly pressed her lips together as she looked Shanks' way. He seemed to be deep in thought as he tried to wash away the bittersweet memories with his sake. She did not know what he was thinking of though. Was it because she had told him that she was from a different dimension? It was probably really hard for him to take in, but she had forced him to believe her. After all, a selected few knew of the past he had shared with Roger and no one knew in detail just how Buggy had obtained his devil fruit powers. But she did. She closed her eyes. What he had told her though, had been just as hard to take in.
Yuki was my lover. Long before she was even with Mihawk.
He had not spoken after. He had just sat there, drinking away as he wallowed in self pity. She did not even know what to say either. Tapping her finger on the table, with her head rested on the other, she thought of what could have been. Her cheeks brightened as she remembered what Shanks had been doing to her before. Where his hands had been, what his eyes had seen. Her lips curved into a smile...what her eyes had seen.
She heard movement, bringing her back to reality. Shanks was chuckling to himself, looking nothing short of a drunkard.
"She wasn't just my lover, Sophie is it?" Shanks said as Sophie nodded her head, "She was my first love. I thought that maybe if..."
He stopped mid-sentence, leaving Sophie a little frustrated. She longed to know just what had driven this man of honor to do what he had done and what he was still doing. After all, Shanks did not seem like the type to sleep with his bestfriend's wife. When she noticed he really had no intention of continuing the conversation, she took the initiative.
"Erm...so. What's the story between the two of you?"
Shanks chugged yet another glass sake, "Yuki. I met her long before I even knew Mihawk. We were...inseparable. I loved her more than anything and she felt the same."
He sighed as his hands grasped onto the empty glass, his eyes forwards, a rather bitter expression on his face. She knew the look too well. She had seen it on herself each time as she walked out the shower. That was the expression she always wore each time the cruel thought of not being able to unite with her loved ones crossed her mind. The expression of hopelessness.
"But I had my dreams and she had her own. She did not wish for much. Just a family. Because she never had one. Like me. Our first names were all we had. We were...incomplete. And for that reason she believed that is what she longed for the most. That completion. I thought I could give it to her. So when Roger died and I set sail with my own crew, I took her with me. We kept our relationship a secret from my own crew as well. It was her wish. It was the perfect plan. But we had not thought it through. Not long after she became a target of both pirates looking for an easy target and marines hoping for my attention."
Sophie nodded, wondering how Mihawk was involved in all of it.
"So we had to go our separate ways," Shanks spat the words as if they were venom. He looked at Sophie and grinned, taking away all the seriousness of the matter with just one gesture. Sophie could not help but smile back, though she felt uneasy doing so.
"Since she was known so well, she needed protection. So I brought her to Mihawk. It was a brilliant plan, but I never anticipated the two ever falling in love. Mihawk knew nothing of our history together. He genuinely thought we were just friends and not only did he make me the best man to the wedding of the woman I loved, but also the minister. It was by me the two were made one."
He laughed at himself, running his hand through his brilliantly red hair, "You know what he said to me o the wedding night..."
He stopped mid-sentence and looked at the sky, "You have to go and sleep now Sophie. The night is coming to an end."
She wanted to know me. When did the cheating start? Did he feel no guilt? How were they never found out? She wanted to know everything, but the snoring that had just begun on Shanks' part made her realize that she might never. She stroked his head as he slept. It must have been hard for him. Looking at her. After all, she looked like Yuki and not even she could deny this fact.
"Good night Shanks," she pressed her lips together and walked out.